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RE: Saturday Night in San Francisco (in reply to wilson s)
Hmmm... At least based on the 28-35min segment that I listened to, he sure sounds like he is always the hero of his own story and everyone else comes off in various shades of unfavourable light.
Also, at least parts of the Friday Night in SF album are in fact from Saturday night, including the first 5min of Mediterranean Sundance which is what the album starts with. Ricardo had investigated this and it can be verified as the Saturday night show (or relevant parts of it) is on video. So, no, it is not a neat Friday vs. Saturday recordings situation that he makes it appear to be.
RE: Saturday Night in San Francisco (in reply to wilson s)
Could be a good sign that John and Al are talking again if that’s the truth. If I remember correctly the video of “ Saturday night” on YouTube is the dvd that Al was selling at his shows only because of the riff with John. Ricardo will have to chime in.
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From: Washington DC
RE: Saturday Night in San Francisco (in reply to wilson s)
Well the entire Saturday night show has been up for years. Playing is mediocre compared to some other nights, hence they use mostly Friday night. I assume the album was so short because it is literally the best material available. Other than the solos and Spain, which were constantly great performances, not sure what he would want to release. Other numbers were Chanela, splendido, Orpheus, and meeting of the spirits. They didn’t do guardian angels till next tour, hence they added the studio version to the album.
Mediterranean Sundance includes the splice in from Saturday, I always assumed Al was being air headed about that, because it’s a good reason to not release video. Al at one point confused the nights and thought that Saturday actually WAS the Friday video. There is no Friday video. Also Al edited a lick during Saturday .... poor paco had to keep,all his mistakes.
As much as I love Al as an artist, his personality sucks. Yes he was always too loud and now admitting on camera he would boost his volume, no doubt AFTER sound check is done. Sound man Vance Anderson did a good job balancing this but I can imagine the frustration if one dude is not being fair. To be fair to AL. The paco John duet tour it’s clear that John had more volume than Paco, so what comes around goes around.
As a huge fan what I would prefer is that Al and John sit down together and produce a retrospective documentary of personally selected best of performances of the trio from its beginning until that final 2010 meeting, complete with interviews and behind the scenes stuff. HD quality cleaned up bootlegs from master tapes, TV spots like the one in Australia on Steve Morse tour, and anything else. Montreux concert etc. At least two discs worth package. I think it would actually sell 😆
Posts: 14797
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Saturday Night in San Francisco (in reply to Ricardo)
As a quick update to this topic, Al live streamed some of the material he will release in spring 2021 of “Saturday” night in San Francisco. I was able to pull up the Saturday night concert footage to compare and realized right away that it is NOT the exact same performance. I would say it is most likely the left overs from the Friday night show that were not used. Al is just so confused which night was which because of that splice-in on Mediterranean Sundance. So, considering it IS new material I am looking forward to it after all.
One detail that always bugged me...Mediterranean Sundance is over 11 minutes long on record. Even with the splice in at 5 min mark, it is odd that piece was that long, as it was normally about 7 minutes in every other live version at that time. I have to wonder if there wasn’t a third night being recorded that also got added in...to the tune of an extra 3 minutes or so. The editing was very well done whatever the case.
RE: Saturday Night in San Francisco (in reply to Ricardo)
Darn I missed it! I see where Al posted a track list, if I remember correctly..
Splendildo Gordito El Panuelo Meeting of the Spirits Black Orpheus Individual Solos
When Al played a demo of the Splendildo track it kinda sounded like it was sped up a bit, like the stuff from Friday Night album. Paco sounded blisteringly fast.
Posts: 14797
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Saturday Night in San Francisco (in reply to Filip)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Filip
quote:
it kinda sounded like it was sped up a bit, like the stuff from Friday Night album
Is Friday Night sped up, really?
The CD remasters run 1/4 tone sharp of A440. My record player plays it even faster, it sounds like F minor the first song in E. Miles Davis Record kind of blue had the same problem because CBS had a tape machine running slow on record. The play back to master was a little faster hence the tuning was sharp. But the reissue was fixed. I assumed for many years the same problem with Friday night, but the reissues always came out the same way. Guardian Angels is ALSO sharp so it wasn’t a live recording issue, the master was deliberately sped up IMO. When I finally saw the saturday night video, I checked and noticed right away the pitch was correct at A440 and of course the speed a bit slower. The proof is right there in the first 5 minute of Mediterranean Sundance.
There was lots of criticism that the subsequent trio recordings lacked the “fire” energy or magic of the Friday night disc, and that other nights were not as good, because it is mainly about improvisations. I can’t help but assume a lot of the “magic” they talk about with that disc and event was due to it running slightly fast. . But then again the solos on the end of Med sun, Frevo and fantasia are a little better than the Saturday night version. The concert in Germany I linked to above was a year later and honestly the playing was better than Friday night IMO, a lot of the main songs. Short tales was especially better and med sun even faster (paco speeds up to like 107bpm in that show!).
RE: Saturday Night in San Francisco (in reply to wilson s)
Ah I see. Well, can't be at the top of your game every day, that's for sure. But speeding up live recording, I kinda don't like the idea. Paco once said "en vivo es lo que eres", and speeding up kind of breaks it. On the other hand, many musicians (Paco included I think) would record a few live performances and then mix them for a cd. There's also a story of Van Halen doing solos on different channels, and then mixing them and actually having to learn the solo at the end.
Posts: 14797
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Saturday Night in San Francisco (in reply to Filip)
quote:
But speeding up live recording, I kinda don't like the idea.
The effect is very subtle actually. Tempo difference between 99 and 103bpm. Decide for yourself...close your eyes and compare the first 5 minutes of each:
RE: Saturday Night in San Francisco (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
Tempo difference between 99 and 103bpm. Decide for yourself...
I can prove it so it does not depend on one's ears for verification When comparing the lengths of the same segment, the one from the video is several seconds longer:
I think the splice happened at about 4:55 on the audio record where there is a natural end of a phrase; also the rasgueados and their timings just after are clearly different, from a different performance.
The same point is at about 5:03 on the video, and on both recordigns the music starts after about the same lead-in silence.
A quarter tone difference, which is a 2.9% speed-up, would mean that a piece of music 5:03 in length - 303 seconds - would be 8.9 seconds shorter - about 4:54 in length. This matches the recordings above very closely even though I haven't bothered with sub-second precision.
But I still think the pitch drop from the audio to the video is quite noticeable. BTW what makes it seem even more so is that the audio's spectrum has more high frequencies and the video a bit less so.
RE: Saturday Night in San Francisco (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
The effect is very subtle actually. Tempo difference between 99 and 103bpm. Decide for yourself...close your eyes and compare the first 5 minutes of each
RE: Saturday Night in San Francisco (in reply to kitarist)
Their playing is already at level 10, what’s another notch anyway, right? I never noticed the speed until Ricardo pointed it out, and now having listened to the live bootlegs on YouTube a thousand times it is very obvious when I hear the album but it doesn’t bother me.
Konstantin, very astute observations. It hurts my brain to try and figure it out
RE: Saturday Night in San Francisco (in reply to wilson s)
Everybody's talking about Al Di Meola. What about Larry Coryell - a founding member of the Guitar Trio? I'm not a fan of this Guitar Trio stuff with or without L. Coryell or di Meola. But I know the original line up was Larry Coryell, John McLaughlin and Paco de Lucia. Due to drug problems L. Coryell was replaced by di Meola.
Here in this video from 0:00 onwards L. Coryell talks about Paco and mentions Sabicas and Manitas de Plata.
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From: Washington DC
RE: Saturday Night in San Francisco (in reply to devilhand)
quote:
But I know the original line up was Larry Coryell, John McLaughlin and Paco de Lucia.
There has historically been a lot of al Dimeola hating in favor of Larry C over the years regarding the Trio. I can admit personality wise and perhaps behind the scenes artistically he was probably a nice guy and fun to work with. Paco admits Larry taught him the “wheel” which I assume means the circle of 5th and how to improvise and change keys. But having said all that I have to say the fusion was FIRST Al dimeola’s idea to play with Paco. And he always just wanted to compose duets with Paco (Mediterranean Sundance, Fantasia suite for 2 guitars, Passion Grace and Fire, Splendido Sundance etc) where Al would arrange a duet specific for the two. Only 2 of those ever manifested as recorded duets. Mclaughlin most likely heard med sun on the radio (it’s the only song I can imagine Paco had on international Radio honestly, unless it was Entre Dos aguas which is basically the same song but not Internationally known at the time) and tracked down Paco to do a tour. His original idea was to feature classical, jazz and flamenco in an acoustic fusion setting, but sort of gave up looking for a classical player that would improvise of charts so he chose Larry to be the “jazz” guy. Larry and John had worked together on “Rene’s theme” for example on Larry’s spaces album. Of course Paco brought Al’s tune to the table, as this was a simple extension of Al’s original idea of doing a fusion. The trio format, of course is first revealed in that tour in 1978-79. To be frank, poor Larry struggles with most of the material IMO. The feel of THAT trio was Larry keeping the beat for John and Paco to really stretch out and battle on stage. At least that is how it seems to me. Keep in mind Al was a student of Larry and worked with him too, but Al was on a different musical level that matches closer to John and Paco abilities, regardless of your tastes (lots of people HATE Dimeola) this is a pretty obvious fact to me.
What happened was, according to Paco, Al wanted to arrange an actual duet Tour with Paco, and it seems it was already in the works when John contacted Paco to do round 2 with the trio with Larry. So Paco said he was already booked to tour with Al so john could join THEM instead. The end of THAT tour resulted in the famous Sanfrancisco album. Larry was not totally out of the picture as right after Sanfrancisco tour ended December 6, Paco and John flew to japan to do a trio tour with Larry and recorded two pieces around christmas for Castro Marin. So literally days apart. The issue with Larry and drug rehab came soon after, but at the time none of these guys knew how HUGE the Sanfrancisco album would turn out. Multi platinum. I don’t think that would have happened with Larry, sorry to say. I feel fortunate to have met Larry and his son back stage of the RTF reunion tour. Super nice guy. The trio concert of Larry Al Dimeola and Bireli Lagrane is also an excellent production. A nice counter example of the format to the actual Duet concert tour Paco and John did around the same time.
RE: Saturday Night in San Francisco (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
To be frank, poor Larry struggles with most of the material IMO. The feel of THAT trio was Larry keeping the beat for John and Paco to really stretch out and battle on stage. At least that is how it seems to me. Keep in mind Al was a student of Larry and worked with him too, but Al was on a different musical level that matches closer to John and Paco abilities, regardless of your tastes (lots of people HATE Dimeola) this is a pretty obvious fact to me.
It's only your opinion. One has to recall L. Coryell is called Godfather of Fusion. On the other hand Al di Meola is just another fusion and jazz guitarist. Younger di Meola must have been more determined to be involved in that project than L. Coryell. In addition in L. Coryell the fire of youth was lacking and he was struggling with drug addiction.
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From: Washington DC
RE: Saturday Night in San Francisco (in reply to devilhand)
quote:
It's only your opinion.
. Well it is clearly visible that he 1. Can’t stay together with Paco on the intro of med sun, even though paco has slowed the piece down from 100 bpm to 90bpm. 2. Was not given an extended solo on the meeting of the spirits 20 minute center piece of the concert. Just plays the chords.
As I said, Larry was a huge influence and teacher of Al. Al performs with him in 1990 or so and again takes the role of leader because he is simply more advanced. If you LIKE Larry‘ s playing BETTER than Al, then THAT is an opinion. Of course in straight ahead jazz context Larry’s style sounds more appropriate than how Al typically plays.
RE: Saturday Night in San Francisco (in reply to devilhand)
I mean clearly this Paco fella is the weakest. Maybe he forgot his pick and didnt have a backup in his pocket, nor secondary backup pick in his wallet.
RE: Saturday Night in San Francisco (in reply to devilhand)
quote:
Another Al di Meola fanboy?
Well, I did go to a di Meola show years ago. The show had a 1.5 hr long technical malfunction with the live audio from Al’s guitar. Thankfully there was a bar at the venue. Turned out the problem was a dead battery in his ovation preamp. Nobody had a new 9v battery so they had to find one lol. Then when he came back on, he wound up switching to his PRS anyway
I definitely like Al in the trio, and enjoy all his contributions of pieces and the lines he plays. I wouldn’t say I’m a hardcore Meola fanboy of all of his personal work. Some albums I like and other stuff not so much. But I think he has a lot of interesting and different ideas.
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RE: Saturday Night in San Francisco (in reply to JasonM)
Well it’s held up as you can hear the story below. Funny I am such a trio nerd I know exactly what the issue is and that neither Al nor the engineers working on this get it. For me it is so frustrating to watch give me the damn tape reels Jesus! Simply put, the Friday master was sped up and that affects the ambient sound as well. Audience hoot and holler everything. They just have to sped it up a hair before they A-B it and they will see it matches.... but these folks will never get it. 😂. @ 1:40:23
RE: Saturday Night in San Francisco (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
before they A-B it
True (not quoted), but what are they A-B-ing? Is he trying to carve out just the Saturday night bits (released as parts of Friday night album and unreleased parts)? Like replace the album's Mediterranean Sunrise after 4:55 with the way the song was played on Saturday night?
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From: Washington DC
RE: Saturday Night in San Francisco (in reply to kitarist)
quote:
ORIGINAL: kitarist
quote:
before they A-B it
True (not quoted), but what are they A-B-ing? Is he trying to carve out just the Saturday night bits (released as parts of Friday night album and unreleased parts)? Like replace the first 4:55 of the album's Mediterranean Sunrise with the way the song was played on Saturday night?
However, this guy A-B’ed it with the Friday Night Master (the one he made himself I assume and the venue did not sound the same. Al said it was ridiculous because he knew it was in fact the same venue (Al is forever confused which is Saturday vs Friday, as pointed out earlier, all because of the Mediterranean Sundance edit). This is a simple case of not understanding the speed of the master running fast issue.
And I hope that you understand, as many times as Friday was re-mastered, the so called “original analog tapes” are in the form of an edited “pre-master” that includes the non-live track Guardian Angel, such that the ENTIRE album, complete with edits, is what is running fast, not just the live part. Obviously the ORIGINAL live Friday tapes (what Al has which he believes to be Saturday only because Mediterranean Sundance is different than the famous record) run at normal speed (see Al’s home studio listening of Splendido). I believe Short tales is also edited as it is very short compared to any live versions I have seen (a full 5 minutes short, so a significant edit I am sure). Whoever chopped it up most likely lost the original material. Al must have a copy of it, or a copy of it was used. There exists a possibility that it actually IS a different venue, but I believe the mobile truck unit was only used in San Francisco. Since Al believes it is from San Francisco, and his confusion about Saturday etc, I think Al simply has the original tapes from Friday AND saturday and is simply confused about which night is which. The video tells the story. The fact what he shared is NOT what the video performance shows but sounds super close proves it actually.
RE: Saturday Night in San Francisco (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
There exists a possibility that it actually IS a different venue, but I believe the mobile truck unit was only used in San Francisco. Since Al believes it is from San Francisco, and his confusion about Saturday etc, I think Al simply has the original tapes from Friday AND saturday and is simply confused about which night is which. The video tells the story. The fact what he shared is NOT what the video performance shows but sounds super close proves it actually.
It is weird they don't remember (or check) that the album has songs spliced from two nights.
Also there is the whole Saturday night concert on youtube (annotation says Dec 6, 1980, which was a Saturday, at Warfield theatre). Even if they have doubts about venue/sounds, that reference recording should erase them - if the video shows the music matching note for note with his Saturday night tapes, obviously it is the same venue and the same show. Sped-up issue still remains, but in fact they can recover and match exactly how much to speed up from this reference again - how can the engineer hear that it is not the same vibe, but miss that it (on the album) is sped up by a half semitone..
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RE: Saturday Night in San Francisco (in reply to kitarist)
You have to understand, these people including Al and John, don’t listen or watch youtube etc, like we do. I study this material. They played 1000 of shows. Mclaughlin couldn’t even remember the “Sundance or sun breeze?” Tune he heard Paco on the radio...and probably didn’t know or care it was Al playing. Al nor john know the freaking NAMES of Paco’s compositions!!!! These guys would not have been involved in the splicing and weren’t even aware I am sure. They have their own personal career and concerns. I still can’t get a number for the album sales...some say 2 million, paco says 5 or 6 million, and Al says over 7 million . I have doubts it reached 1 million because those are platinum certified albums and Friday night is not on any such list I have seen.
The engineers that work on this stuff are not always musicians and also don’t seem to notice that the “original analogue source” materials are not original at all. There are continued comments on that video that insist this was NOT the same performance of Mediterranean, then people argue with the screams are the same in the middle of Al’s solo, and others point out the end is different etc etc. Only a few nerds like us know what is up.
Printable Version
When comparing the lengths of the same segment, the one from the video is several seconds longer: 
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